Category: ”Tis the Season

This morning my alarm went off at 4:30am, unfortunately I was already awake and had been most of the night:(. My mom and I were ready to be on the road by 5am, but my diva dad took longer. Who knew he took so long to get ready?!?!

It was out the door for the long drive to the airport. I know now why people would fall asleep driving! At home, I’ve always wondered how that is possible as you’re always having to turn a corner or go up a hill, but in Arizona you just drive straight forever!!!!

The sunrise was gorgeous, but of course, I didn’t manage to get a picture:(. There was one spot that was so beautiful- the entrance into a housing development that had tons of palm trees and their trunks were wrapped in white lights. With the sunrise right behind them, it was spectacular!

I ended up being at the airport about three hours and forty five minutes early. We could have left at 5:45am like my mom and I wanted to, but I guess it was a good thing. I walked in and the place was crazy. Not only did you have all the people returning from holidays, but then I guess there were a lot of flights delayed, cancelled or changed yesterday because of the weather and today was the fallout from that! I was glad that I had no time worries as I was standing in a security line up forever!! I don’t even know why I had to stand there in the first place because I have Nexus!!! That is supposed to bypass me from the lines in both the US and Canada, but so far I have only found it works in Canada:(. In addition, everywhere you look they have signs that they are the friendliest airport in America, but they aren’t!!!! Everyone who worked there that I interacted with was gruff, rude, impatient and just downright unpleasant!! They need to look up in the dictionary what friendly means!!!

I was so early at the gate that I got to talk to a woman who was leaving from that gate going to Des Moins. I don’t know how I attract people talking to me?!?! I was just sitting there reading blogs while I had wifi and suddenly I heard all about her granddaughter’s Christmas wedding on the beach in California and how she then went to San Diego to see her daughter and then back to Monterey. I heard about her delayed flights yesterday and how she had to stay overnight unexpectedly without her luggage. She seemed a very nice lady and definitely made the time go faster.

I finally got into the plane. I have never seen people rush to get into a plane before! We all have assigned seats people, you don’t need to rush!! I had exactly the same seat as when I went down, 18A. The coolest thing was that I was the first in my row and it was so much easier to get myself organized with all that room to move!! I ended up beside a lady from Maryland who was visiting Whistler for the first time (a local ski area), and a young college student who was visiting her best friend at our local university. She’d had quite the experience trying to get there and was three days later than planned! She was from New York but went to school in Maine and was heading out this coming Sunday for a semester in Ireland! Again, I don’t know how I ended up knowing so much about them, I was just sitting there quietly reading my murder mystery!!

The plane ride was fine. I have no complaints about planes. Once I have my bag under the seat so my feet have something to rest on, I am perfectly content:). I made good progress on Glazed Murder and have less than a hundred pages to go!

Getting off the plane went fine and I was doing pretty good until I got to customs. As a Nexus holder I walked up to the Nexus machines and waited for the wheelchair one that has an iris scanner low enough for me ( we won’t talk about my issues when coming back in May😳), and yet again I had trouble:(. After the sixth attempt I nearly cried ( which never happens!) I was just about to give up and stand in the super long regular lineup when it finally worked and I got to walk down, bypass every line up and go through customs where the guy said absolutely nothing to me except that I should invest in some very high heels to wear at the airport. I don’t know if he saw my troubles or was just reacting to the fact I could barely see over his counter on my tip toes!

I walked out and got into the skytrain. I had decided not to make anyone make the over an hour drive to the airport to get me since I was getting in during the afternoon. I figured it would take me about two hours to get home on the skytrain, and I was only two minutes off my estimate! The skytrain trip wasn’t exciting. I had to transfer a bunch of times, but I just sat quietly and kind of mindlessly. By this time I felt like my body was detached from me. Am I getting old that travelling now wears me out??

Lol I got off the skytrain in my city finally to cold, gray, drizzle. I knew it was coming, but it was still kind of a shock! I had to laugh because in Arizona I had a difficult time getting used to the fact everything is brown and flat and that there are no big trees. When I got off the skytrain, I thought wow, my town even smells like Christmas trees as there are big trees everywhere. Then I realized it was just because the firemen were having their annual tree chipping event🤣. No wonder it smelled like Christmas trees! The walk home from the skytrain was fine. Three blocks of cold and wet:(

I found my keys in the first place I looked which was lucky and finally opened my condo door at 3:58pm. Glad to be home, still alive and only down one nail which broke while I was putting the key in the door????

Just in time to be sick:(. I spent the next hour vomiting ( I have no idea why) and slept for the two hours after that. I feel better now and think I will work on my year in temperature scarf and hopefully finish Glazed Murder!

Well, I hope you all had a quieter day than me! Oh but thank you to everyone who posted today and kept me entertained and to Julie who was messaging with me while I was on the skytrain which really helped!!

Exercise: Just a walk with my mom around the East campsite. It was 45 lovely minutes in the sun:). Had to enjoy every moment with my mom that I can! Even had time to stop for a few pictures:)

I can’t believe how many buildings are painted with murals! I should have taken pictures of some of the others- there was even one of a giraffe on the side of a house!

Knitting:

I got a dishcloth made for my mom today. It was small, but was a new pattern for me and went quite quickly. It was a six row repeat that was easy to remember:). The pattern is Here. I did the 41 stitch option and think it turned out pretty cute:)

It was even better that I got this posted for the Herbology class in HPKCHC:)

I also did some planning for my year in temperatures scarf that I am doing this year. I knew I wanted to do this while I was with my mom as she often thinks of things I don’t. I have a plan now and can’t wait to get home to start on it. It’s going to be neat seeing that my scarf is different from my knitting buddy’s because of the time I spent down here:)

Reading:

I got a few more chapters of Glazed Murder done. I think this book will be what I entertain myself with tomorrow for the six hours I’ll be hanging around for:)

Baking:

I made some chocolate chip cookies for my parents today to try and make up for the sticky buns of yesterday. I found the recipe on WordPress at This site:). The cookies turned out fine but they still spread more than I wanted them to. It will be nice to have all my tools and a familiar oven. Using the convection oven/ microwave has been nice in that you set the timer and the oven goes off when that time is reached.

Laundry:

It will be the first time that I will go home from a holiday with no laundry🤣I love my parent’s washer and dryer! It is way better than mine at home and I may just need to look into getting one:). I knew I should have traded my parents my condo for their 5th Wheel!🤣

Socializing:

I went to happy hour with my parents this evening since it was my last night here. The people here are so sweet! There is one couple who got engaged after only knowing each other for three days and they are still together 59 years later! Another gentleman came by after to wish my a safe trip and to say he hopes he sees me again next year! What lovely people!

Movies:

I watched another Hallmark movie today- had to get it in while I could on a big screen! Anything For Love managed to be the cheesiest movie I’ve seen yet! 😂 I also watched Secondhand Lions tonight. What an excellent movie!!! Michael Caine and Robert Duval were amazing!!! I’d recommend this movie to anyone!

Well I’m off to bed at an incredibly early hour as I have to be leaving at 5am my dad said. I’ll be early but I’d just read wherever I am and it’s better if my dad is out of the city before traffic gets bad!!!!

This morning I got up with the idea of just walking with my mom, but my parents had other ideas! My dad left for his walk saying that he would meet up with us. Ugh I guess I have to run! I ran for fifteen minutes out and turned just after I passed my dad, though I first had to wait for a border patrol officer to go by on his ATV. I walked with my parents for a moment when I got to them and considered just ending my run there, but then I realized I only had twelve minutes left. I can do it, I said to myself, and I did:). I am finding the weekly stats that Runkeeper shows me very inspiring. I consistently have an average pace under 7min now (unless I purposely slow down) so I think I will mark that fitness goal complete😀

This afternoon I got a workout in. I decided to try a Tone It Up workout from Living Out Loud. It was a pretty good workout, and would have been even better if I’d had real weights rather than the box of biscuit mix! The workout had one legged dead lift with flies, jumping jacks, plank taps, squats and v crunches with high knees between each of the three sets. I liked that it had a little bit for upper body, lower body, cardio, and abs:)

Reading:

I got a few more chapters of Glazed Murder read and I’m happy to say I’m more interested now:)

I read The cozy pages blog post this morning about the BBC list of 100 books to read. I was amazed that I’ve only done about a third of them and that put me in the top 30% of the people who had taken the test. I think I’ve probably done a few I’ve forgotten about, but with Librivox, I’m sure to check off some more. I recently downloaded Walden and Wives and Daughters to listen to.

Knitting:

I spent lots of time choosing patterns today. I chose a pattern for my black/gray variegated Riverstone yarn, but unfortunately it requires size 4mm circular needles and I only have 6.5mm circular with me:(. I also chose a winter sweater to make to wear to school.

I am thinking about creating a scallop dishcloth for one of the HPKCHC classes as what does one do in a day, if not knit?

Movies:

I watched two chick flicks today. One was A Royal New Years.
The second movie I finished today was The Wedding March.
Both were the typical Hallmark movie, but I just really like how they end happily and put a smile on my face. It’s also nice that I can count stitches without losing track of the plot!

Baking:

My dad had requested sticky buns and I finally got around to making them today. It was kind of weird, but also awesome to deal with regular dough again. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to knead dough! The recipe I used was from Allrecipes. It was super easy and the buns looked amazing before I cooked them, but unfortunately I was dealing with an unfamiliar convection oven so one batch ended up burned on top and the other ended up raw on the bottom:(. If I’d been at home- I would have just thrown them all out, but my parents are actually eating them!<
have to make chocolate chip cookies tomorrow to redeem myself!

I think that is all I did today. Some people might think I’ve been crazy to spend my whole holidays in this manner, but as I look at it, I’m getting to do all my favourite things (and exactly what I would be doing at home), but here I have company and sunshine and warmth! Seems like a win to me!

I once again got out for a quick run. I need to fix my audible stats as I thought I was turning at twenty minutes but it turned out to be less so I was a little short on my run. Oh well, I’m on holidays so at least I ran!

One of my running buddies this week:). He goes my speed🤣

I also got a quick twenty minute workout in this afternoon. I went back to my own creation and did one minute of running in between each of the following moves- jumping jacks, skipping, lunges, squats, fast feet, in/outs, moguls, high knees, kicks, and toe taps. It was quick, but I was sweating:)

Tomorrow I want to try out a workout that I read about on Living Out Loud! I love not having to figure out a workout!

Knitting:

I was supposed to get to start my vest today, but instead I redid the hat for Cindy as she wanted it to be about an inch longer. It really just took an hour and a half, but it was interrupted so it seems longer. I’m just glad she is happy with the toque! She wanted to pay me😂. I like it when people are truly happy and will actually wear the item and will happily fix something so this will happen, rather than have them say they like it and then never wear it. I put effort into it, I want to know it will be used:)

I’ll start the vest tomorrow:)

Shopping:

I went into Ajo today to go shopping. For just being an IGA, the store has a pretty good selection of gluten free, dairy free items. I’ve managed to get photos to update my favourites page down here. I am doing this in the hopes my mom will buy some of these products and bring them home with her (only the things she’s allowed to bring across the border of course!).

Today I found my Dang Coconut chips again. These are an item I found in Maine this summer and loved and haven’t found since. These were just the original flavour, rather than the salted caramel I had this summer, but they were still very yummy! I ate the whole bag in one sitting!!!! They are very sweet, but also light. I don’t think I would ever get a stomach ache from eating these. They are super sweet though, so if you don’t like sweet, don’t buy these!

I also picked up more tortillas as Mission makes awesome soft ones!

Tea:

Talking of salted caramel I have been drinking a new type of tea while I’ve been in Arizona. It is Bigelow Salted Caramel tea. It has been super flavourful both on the first use of the tea bag and after several more dunkings. The tea can also handle the addition of milk without losing its flavour. It is a black tea, so if you’re looking for a cold weather tea, I would recommend this one! It didn’t even go bitter after sitting for hours:)

Reading:

Still working on Glazed Murder. I finally got past the first chapter and realized there are recipes included in the book. So far it was a donut recipe and I already have a favourite one, but we’ll see if future ones tempt me!

Puzzle:

First thing this morning my parents used the puzzle to solve the Hitchcock murder mystery. This requires you to read the short story pamphlet and look at the puzzle for clues. It was kind of cool and redeemed the puzzle slightly, though the missing pieces still bugged me!!!

Baking:

My brothers and I have not lived at home for about fifteen years and et my dad still cooks as though he is feeding large, growing boys! On occasion this works in my favour as there was leftover rice in the fridge. This evening during happy hour, I made up some rice pudding. I love puddings! I found a super simple Recipe on Pinterest. My mom and I agreed that it turned out with a nice consistency, but I would lessen the amount of cinnamon in it next time. I also questioned whether there is different rice in the states like there is different flour? I’ll have to try the recipe again at home to find out. Unfortunately it was all gone before I could get pictures of it.

Movies:

I managed to finish the Murder She Baked movies today. I enjoyed this series though it is quite different from the books. Again, if you like cosy mysteries I would recommend the Joanne Fluke Hannah Swenson series and this series of movies.

Well I think that’s it for my day. Now I need to go entertain my mom so she doesn’t go to sleep too early and get up too early!! The jobs of a daughter are never done🤣

Sorry I wrote this last night and thought it had posted but my mom just asked me and I came to find it didn’t even save as a draft. I’ll be more careful tonight!

Exercise:

I was very determined to see the mile 51 marker and I finally made it today. It ended up being just beyond where I had stopped before and amazingly I felt really good! Well at least until I fell flat out:( I have no idea why and for a moment I thought of saying, “oh I fell, I’ll just walk back”, but that was going to take forever so I made myself run all the way back to the start. When I got there I had the right timing but I was at 5.87 so of course I had to run for a tiny bit more to make it an even 6km:). I’m glad I finally made that mile marker so now I can just do what I want for the rest of the week.

I also got a workout in later this afternoon. I had read about Freeletics on Leah’s blog. I downloaded the app and tried out the free version. The first workout they gave me was just squats, crunches and mountain climbers. This took about three minutes:( I added on another of their workouts which was the same moves, just more reps. This still only brought me to twelve minutes so I added on five minutes of my own creation. Perhaps the paid version is better, but I wasn’t super impressed with the free one!

Reading:

I got a couple of more pages of Glazed Murder done. I haven’t had a lot of time! I started with this book because I want to read more “good for me” books this year, though trashy romances will continue to be in my TBR:). At the new year I always have the saying, “start as you mean to go on” in my head so I decided I had better start with a non trashy book 🤣

Knitting:

I have spent some time knitting another black and white toque for a lovely lady from Wisconsin. I wore my toque on New Years Eve and she asked if I would mind making her one. I got busy and got it done today. My grandma always said that if you had something to do, just do it and get it done.

<<<<<
sted on 80 stitches, did 2×2 rib for ten rows and then switched to stockinette stitch until I had five inches from the start. I then decreased and sewed it up:)

It took no time and hopefully it also earned Gryffindor points on HPKCHC in the art history course.

Puzzle:

I haven’t had much time as I’ve been spending all my time working on the puzzle with my mom. I’ve finally found one area where I am patient. I found all the pieces in a colour and then proceeded to try each piece until I found the one that fit. I then did the same with the next piece. My dad has been banned from ever buying a puzzle again! We did get it done, though there are sixteen pieces missing and two that don’t belong! How annoying is that!
Well I’m off as I was in the middle of projects!

I started the day by going to a yoga class in Ajo. I used to do yoga three times a week and was super flexible, however, it’s been about fifteen years. I was a little worried about how it would go. I needn’t have worried! There were about fifteen women there for this “gentle” yoga class. It felt great to do yoga again, though I obviously need to do it more as boy are my hamstrings tight! I’m going to try to set up the yoga channel for my mom before I leave and I will definitely be looking forward to the athletic yoga I’ll be starting with a friend in January.

I got a quick walk in where I did a 100 yards of high knees skipping.

I also got a 25 minute workout in this afternoon during my parent’s happy hour. I didn’t feel as though this one was as tough, but I was able to do more abs work than previously:). I did: 50 front kicks, 50 side kicks, 50 back kicks, 50 curtsy lunges, 50 plié squats, 50 squats, 50 push-ups, 25 dips, 25 overhead press, 50 bicep curls, 50 leg drops, 50 oblique crunches, 25 crunches.

It’s amazing that I’ve been feeling flabby all day since I didn’t go for a run today. It doesn’t help that there’s chips in this household! I have great self control as long as it’s not tested🤣

Eating:

Other than the chips I am back to eating much healthier. I’ve been enjoying my salads and veggies:)<
morrow I hope to make the sticky buns for my dad!

Reading:

I started Glazed Murder by Jessica Beck, but haven’t gotten far enough to discuss it.

I was asked last night by a lovely lady from Wisconsin to make her a toque like mine. I measured her head and casted on, but haven’t gotten far.

I heard about knitmeter from a fellow blogger and rushed to the site to sign up as it sounds so cool to be able to know how many miles of yarn I have knitted. I signed up but it hasn’t sent me an activation code yet:(. I hope I get it soon!

So what have I done with my day? A jigsaw puzzle! It’s my family’s tradition to do a puzzle on New Year’s Eve but this year it got pushed to New Years Day. It’s a tough Alfred Hitchcock puzzle that does not come with a picture😫😳. I have learned that I am a very visual person! This is definitely not accomplishing anything!! If anyone is wondering where I get this need to be busy all the time- here’s a clue:) My dad is retired and in the middle of nowhere and he’s still making chairs, tables, etc out of things he finds in the desert. I definitely get this honestly🤣 though I’m not nearly as creative as he is!

Movies:

I did remember to go looking for the Murder She Baked movies. . I have enjoyed three of these now. The Chocolate Chip Murder, the Plum Pudding Mystery, the Peach Cobbler Murder and I am on the Deadly Recipe movie now. I would recommend these movies to anyone who enjoys cosy mysteries. I’ve read all of these books by Joanne Fluke because my dad loves the recipes, and the movies have been just as good!

Goals:

I’ve been reading lots of blog posts on goals for 2018 and for the first time I am not going to make any resolutions. I will try to live life to the fullest and do the things I love to do. This blog already gets me to do a lot more things than I used to do:). I wish everyone else luck with their goals though!

It’s been interesting to say the least. This post will include some reflections on the past year in addition to my day:)

Exercise:

I got out for a run this morning, even though I didn’t want to go! When I logged into Runkeeper it had a challenge happening where you had to run for 20:18. That worked just perfectly for me today, so that’s what I did:). I probably could have done more physically, but mentally, I just wasn’t there:(

I spent the afternoon looking back on my running this year. I had been very surprised to have Runkeeper tell me that I had ran more last year. It turns out I was right and they were wrong!

2016- 464.27km, 98 runs, with an average of 4.73km

2017- 736.26km, 164 days, average of 4.49km

I am pretty happy with the stats for this year, especially considering I’ve had five dental surgeries since December of last year and was unable to run after each. I ran 66 more days this year and 271.99 more. You have no idea how tempted I was to go run 0.01km more so I could have an even number:)

Reading:

I finished my 100th book of the year today. It was A Kiss For Christmas by Melody Grace. The book, A Kiss For Christmas includes three short stories which are loosely bound together by some overlapping characters. I found the stories had a lovely Christmas present, but I found the pace was very quick in all of the stories which made them difficult to believe. I think I would have enjoyed the stories more if they had been full length novels with more character development.

However, if you are looking for a quick Christmas read or like a hot read, you would enjoy this book.

Goodreads has informed me that I have read 100 books this year, 25,498 pages, which is less than what I read last year. I am happy to see that 1/5 of the books could be considered “good for me” books or at least aren’t trashy romances🤣

Cooking/ Baking:

I have continued my quest to remake my favourites into gluten free and dairy free creations. I feel that I have made a lot of interesting recipes this year, but unfortunately I don’t have any of that information with me. (Hence the need to task this stuff on my blog). I will continue this quest in the new year and also want to make homemade pizza and more stir fries.

I do have to ask if anyone has a good recipe for sticky buns with walnuts, I’d appreciate hearing it as that is what my dad has requested I make next and of course, my tried and true recipe is at home:(

Knitting:

I didn’t intend to make anything today, but I had just a little bit of the black and white yarn left over so I figured I might as well use it up! It made a quick, single loop Cowl that I will probably wear tonight:)<<<<<<<
rished my Ravelry projects thread today to discover what I have been creating this year.

I have completed 33 projects this year. (I really wish Ravelry would do a year in review like Goodreads does)! I have made:

7 toques

4 cowls

4 pairs of handwarmers

3 shawls

2 vests/tanks

2 tea cosies

2 blankets

2 scarves

2 sweaters

1 dog sweater

1 pair of slippers

1 pillow cover

1 baby sweater

1 headband

Not bad for the year, though next year I would like to make more sweaters for myself! I also want to make some socks! I was very surprised to see I hadn’t actually done any this year!! I would also like to follow more patterns as I seem to do lots of things just out of my head.

Blogging:

Probably one of the biggest changes I have made this year has been to start this blog and keep going at it. I am amazed and humbled by the fact that I have 303 followers (I often wonder to myself why anyone would want to read my posts🤣)? WordPress tells me that I have done 165 posts, had 8,191 views and 2,371 visitors. I started this blog to keep track of the above areas of my life along with my teaching life and to focus on the positive without any thought of actually having anyone else read my posts. I must say thank you though to those of you who read and comment. You give me lots of advice and encouragement and I often find myself talking about my “friends” on here as many of you have become that.

I leave you tonight with a beautiful Arizona sunset and a wish for all the best in 2018. I hope it is filled with everything positive! My New Years- a campfire and some fireworks with some really neat people!

I purposely slowed down by a minute this morning and I didn’t loop back to my mom. I managed to complete the whole run I planned and it recorded properly on runkeeper. I guess it was the looping that was throwing it off. I guess this just says I should take it slow down here and save my speed work for home. I really want to make it to the next mile marker though!! Unfortunately, I haven’t been out yet to determine exactly where it is and find a landmark. Thankfully I still have almost a week to get this done:)

I also got a quick workout in this evening. I did 50 squats, 50 plié squats, 50 swing lunges, 50 side kicks, 50 back leg raises, 50 high knees, 50 jabs, 50 crosses, 50 upper cuts, 50 push-ups, 50 bicep curls, 25 crunches, 50 side crunches, 25 leg drops, 25 flutter kicks, 25 reverse crunches. There again may have been more but I was just doing whatever came into my head. I was sweating by the end, but that may have been because it was warm in the trailer.🤣. It was interesting trying to find something to use as a weight in the trailer- my parent’s bottles of alcohol had to suffice. I tried out several to find the heaviest, but of course everything seems heavy after 50 reps!

Reading:

I finished listening to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte today on Librivox. Jane Eyre is excellent! At 38 chapters it is a commitment but it was well worth the time!! The reader was Elizabeth Klett and she was great! The book contains a moral like most Victorian writing does, as well as the idea that you are rewarded or punished by god for your actions. I found the book to have a good pace and lots happening. The plot carries the reader along, however, it manages to avoid being so outlandish as to be unrealistic.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Christian literature or the classics. It was a good story!

I was thinking that I would keep notes as I read in the new year so that I could write better reviews, but I’m worried it would ruin reading for me, so you may have to just put up with my short, general reviews.🤣

Knitting:

I spent a lot of today working on a vest for myself. I made up the pattern, loosely based on what I remembered of a vest I had made for my mom a few years ago. I wanted to make myself something from the black and white combination that I’ve recently used for a tea cosy and a toque. I didn’t really think I would manage to get the whole vest made with what I had left, but I did😀 I casted on 114 stitches on 6.5mm needles and joined in the round. I knitted ten rows of 2×2 twisted ribbing and then switched to straight knitting until it reached 13″. I then bound off six stitches at the mid point and at the end of the next row. I divided the front and back sections into halves and worked one quarter at a time. I decreased two stitches at the underarm and one stitch at the neckline every other row. When I had twelve stitches, I knitted 20 rows even. I bound off and repeated the exact same process for the other three sections. I then sewed the shoulder seams together.

I don’t love the side section of one part, but don’t hate it enough to rip it out and redo it. I think this will be quite useful as I can wear it on its own, but I can also wear it over a shirt at work to add a layer of warmth. I thought about crocheting around the edges, but in the end decided not to.

Amazingly I still have yarn left over!!! Maybe I’ll tackle a quick Barbie dress tomorrow so I’ll have an even thirty projects completed this year.

Baking:

I didn’t technically bake anything today, but I did make a delicious strawberry banana ice cream:) It is super easy and quick! Slice two bananas and freeze on a cookie sheet. Slice two cups of strawberries and freeze. Combine the frozen strawberries and bananas with a 1/2tsp vanilla and 2tbsp cream and blend. It is so yummy!!!! Unfortunately it’s all gone so there’s no photo:(. I used coconut cream and it was still good!

That’s really all I did today. I am now going to try and get through half a book tonight so I’ll be done before the end of the year and will have an even number of books read this year.

Another lovely day just like the previous, except I didn’t accomplish anything:(

Exercise:

I did a half hour run this morning where I managed to get every dog in town barking. Remind me not to go that way again! It was just a half hour and yet again the splits didn’t align to what it was telling me as I was running. I’m wondering if it has something to do with the turning as I loop back to my mom?? Oh well, I figure any running I do on my holiday is good:)

Reading:

I am on chapter 34 of Jane Eyre so I should manage to finish tomorrow. It has been such a good book. It makes me wonder if any book in my generation will withstand the test of time as this one has??

Knitting:

I thought I would have something finished to show you, but as usual I have had to rip it out multiple times, so there’s no FO tonight:(. I often wonder if there are knitters out there who don’t rip out projects multiple times??

I counted today and I have done 28 projects as recorded in Ravelry this year. Of course, being me, I was disappointed that they were mostly small projects. Oh well, at least I accomplished 28 things this year and maybe I’ll have 29 before the end of the year!😀

Oh my one bit of exciting news today was that I got sorted into Gryffindor House in the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. I’m happy that I got sorted though I would have participated again even if I wasn’t! I love how it helps me decide what to make! I can’t wait to see what challenges January brings!

Watching:

I watched Rocky Mountain Christmas today. It is a hallmark movie and was okay, though the ending was completely unrealistic!! The interior designer gives up her job in New York to run a dude ranch!?!?! I like them to have at least a hint of realism!!! I suppose my expectations are too high!

It made me think that I should look and see if I can find the movies based on Joanne Fluke’s books while I’m down here. Maybe I can watch them and perhaps my dad wouldn’t whine quite so much if I was watching a mystery movie😂

I got out this morning for another run along the BLM fence. I was aiming for the second mile marker, but didn’t make it. Next time we drive into town I’ll have to take better note of a landmark around there. I did circles around my mom who was walking instead. My phone was acting really weird though. It gave my pace as 6:18, 6:28, 6:44 while I was running, but recorded times over 7min when I looked at my splits afterwards. I can’t tell you which is right because the run still felt really difficult today:( Well at least I ran and maybe tomorrow will be better.

I got a quick body weight workout in while my parents were at the happy hour. Fifty squats, fifty curtsy lunges, fifty push-ups, fifty dips, fifty second planks, 50 reverse crunches, 50 crunches, 10 box crunches, 25 flutter kicks, 25 leg drops, 50 side leg raises, 50 back leg raises, 50 jabs, 50 uppercuts. There may have been more, but I can’t remember them at this point. I’m just trying not to lose all my fitness on this trip as that would make going back to Lyndsay’s workouts really tough!!!😳

Knitting:

I got my toque made today and thankfully only had to tink three rows this time. I forgot and put the ponytail hole in the nice part rather than near the seam. It is not as big and thick as I like my toques, but it is super soft:)

Reading:

I spent some time in the sunshine this afternoon listening to Jane Eyre again on Librivox. I am enjoying the book and think that I can actually finish by New Years. Abbey I am on chapter 28 now:). Only ten chapters to go. I will do some more tonight once my headphones recharge.

Movies:

I found the hallmark movies on my parent’s tv today and watched The Pumpkin Pie War. It was definitely not one of the best movies and having to listen to my dad whine, didn’t help! 🤣. I think I’d better keep my Hallmark habit to when I’m alone so I don’t torture other people! I got halfway through A Crush On You and will try to watch the rest as my dad is currently watching Avatar at high volume.